So what did everyone do for WWKIP Day?  I’d planned to go to the event being held in Centennial Park in downtown Nashville, but when I got up and saw how dreary it looked outside, I just didn’t feel like going.  My local yarn shop came up with a great alternative though: we all got together at 9 a.m. at our local Barnes and Noble to knit together.

Starbuck’s coffee, lots of books and knitting?  Count me in!  There were also door prizes involved, and I won one!  I got a nice tote bag (I think it’s from SWTC), a Starbucks gift card (woo!), and a cute nail file that has the Neighborhood Knit Shop’s logo on it.  It was fun to get out and knit someplace outside my house or the knit shop, and I hope to get the opportunity to do it more often.

After the morning WWKIP event, I went home and checked on the animals and did a little house work… Friday night I had come home to a flooded apartment.  Water had come in under our font door and soaked our throw-rugs and carpeting around there, and it had also come up through a foundation leak that’s apparently somewhere between the kitchen and utility room.  The kitchen actually had standing water and there were soaked towels and laundry in our utility room because I’d left them on the floor when I was sorting laundry.  Ugh!  So needless to say I had a mess on my hands and worked quite a bit on Friday and Saturday to get things back to normal.  The joys of apartment-living, I tell you.  At least they have to pay to fix it.

Anyway, I went back to the knit shop after lunch time and spent most of the afternoon there visiting with my friends and knitting.

I’ve been working diligently on my Clapotis…

Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in “Emerald”
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See?  I took it up onto the plaza to photograph it by the fountain during my lunch hour today.  I’m fairly certain I probably scared a few tourists.  (”Why is the crazy lady over there taking pictures of her knitting?” … “Why is the crazy lady knitting heavy wool in 90-degree heat?” …)

I’ve gotten to drop the stitches on two rows so far.  I love watching it unravel down, down, down.  Unfortunately, my one and only complaint about the Malabrigo: it sticks to itself.  So sometimes you have to help the stitches drop.  That’s also why my skein is rolled into a regular ball rather than a center-pull.  When I had it in a center pull ball, it kept sticking and getting tangled.  I think when I join the next skein, I may roll it into a center-pull ball, but pull the working yarn from the outside rather than the middle.

I’m also knitting socks, as always.  I’m finishing up a couple pairs before Summer of Socks ‘08 begins.

I still have a pair of socks for my husband on the needles…

Pattern: 7 Stitches Per Inch Sock by Ann Budd (from Getting Started Knitting Socks)
Yarn: Rio de la Plata in “Teal Black Too”
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I’m discovering that plain stockinette socks really don’t hold my interest as much as they used to, despite using interesting yarns to try and compensate.  So I’m really suffering to finish these.  Not to mention that the husband has BIG feet, so I still have lots of knitting ahead of me.  ::sigh::

My Swirls socks have been getting more attention because it’s a really fun pattern to knit up: challenging enough to keep my attention, but not so challenging that it becomes frustrating.

Pattern: Swirls by Monica Jines
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome in “Wind in the Willows”
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These socks (pattern and yarn) were from the first month’s shipment of the Loopy Ewe sock club.  I’m finally finishing them up!

And speaking of sock clubs… I managed to finally get signed up for Yarn Pirate’s Booty Club!  I’m psyched.  I’ve always missed sign ups in the past.

I’ve also been lusting after some of the new(-ish) colorways from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  Specifically I’m eyeballing Kaw Kaw and Grimm’s Willow-Wren.

But ya know… all I need right now is more sock yarn.  ::ahem::

Someone please tell me how I missed this!? KnitPicks has released Bare Sock Yarn Dye Blanks.

If you’re at all familiar with Flat Feet sock yarn, you’ll get the concept right away. Two key differences though: the KnitPicks version is a blank for you to dye yourself, and it is double-stranded so you can make two identical socks from it.

The KnitPicks blank is a double-stranded flat length of knitted material that you can easily hand-dye a striped pattern using acid dyes. You can also do other effects such as this gradated technique which really appeals to me.

What’s even more fun… you can knit socks 2 at a time directly from the blank and the striping pattern will be identical on both socks! How brilliant is that? I love knitting socks two-at-a-time and this completely takes away the issue of having the two balls tangling around eachother.

I wonder how big of a mess I’d make with acid dyes in our apartment? I’ve never done any dyeing before, though it’s something that definitely interests me. I’m just hesitant to mess with dye in a place we’re renting. (Don’t want to kill our security deposit ya’know?) Yet, I’m really, really tempted.

Seriously, I just went to the KnitPicks site to order some lace blocking wires…

ETA: Alright, I caved. Looks like I better start shopping for all the other supplies (mask, gloves, squeeze-bottles, etc.) that I’m going to need for the dyeing process… ’cause I know I’m going to want to dye this up as soon as it arrives in the mail!

I find sock yarn incredibly stashable. I find it much, much more stashable than other yarns. I suppose it’s because you don’t have to buy a very large quantity of a particular yarn to stash for a pair of socks. Three to four hundred yards will do just fine, so you buy a skein here and a skein there. What with all the indie-dyers out there, there’s a virtual buffet of sock yarn to be had.  You could knit hundreds of pairs of socks and probably never use the same yarn twice.

My sock yarn stash, which is the largest part of my stash, lives in two wire cubes. The top-most cube contains all the unwound hanks, and the cube beneath it contains all the yarn I’ve already wound into center-pull balls. (I got a bit carried away when I first bought my swift and ball-winder, and didn’t know that it’s “bad” to wind your yarn too far in advance of using it.)

I decided to “unpack” those two wire cubes tonight to see what’s really in there…

(View the BIG version of this picture here.)

I started piling the yarn on my coffee table.  Then I realized it didn’t fit.  So it spilled over on to the couch too.  There’s enough yarn there to knit 50 pairs of socks.  Whew!  I guess I better get knitting!

My main goal for Summer of Socks ‘08 is to knit up all the yarn that’s already been wound.  That accounts for 13 pairs.  That’s do-able (… I think?).  I’m going to start looking for patterns to match up with each of those yarns.  Maybe if I get particularly ambitious, I’ll even print out all the patterns and make up ziploc project bags with the individual yarn/pattern combo in each bag.  Then I can just grab-n-go. 

Once all those wound balls of yarn are used up, that should empty out one of the two cubes.  I’m going to attempt to restrain myself to only having one cube full of sock-yarn-stash… not buy more till I knit some up and make room for it.  (Good intentions…)

I just really, really need to make room for my ever-growing roving stash.  So I guess that means I’m really not “de-stashing”.  I’m just “stash-shifting”.  Ah well.

What with the move and all, I haven’t been very productive with the knitting just lately.

The most progress I’ve been making is on the pair of socks I’ve been knitting at work during lunch time. (Did I mention I’ve now managed to learn how to eat, read a book, and knit all at the same time? I feel quite talented.)

Pattern: Yarn Harlot’s Basic Sock Recipe (from Knitting Rules!)
Yarn: Misty Mountain Farm Jubilee in “Sunset”
Needles: Lantern Moon Sox Stix DPNs, size 2 (ebony)

I still don’t quite get why this color is called “Sunset” — to me, it says “Easter” or “springtime.” Maybe it’s just me. Regardless, it’s pretty.

OH! I fully retract my initial glowing review of Lantern Moon Sox Stix. Last week when I was working on these socks, I was knitting along and the needle in my left hand snapped in half! That left me with 4 needles, so I transferred the instep to a single needle and kept knitting. Then yesterday, the tip of one of the needles chipped off. It’s almost as if the wood is getting brittle or something? But for $23 per set, they should certainly last a lot longer than a few months.

I said “bah-humbug” on them and ordered myself a set of metal DPNs from KnitPicks.

Sign-ups for new participants in Sock Madness 2 began today. You better believe I sent my sign-up request in. I’m a total glutton for punishment, apparently. I’m not entirely sure what I’m getting myself into or if I’ll be able to keep up with it. But I’d really like to try because I think this will push me to try some new things and expand my knitting skills.

Then there’s Sock Wars III which starts in May, which I also want to participate in. ‘Cause ya know… “assassinating” targets with socks?! I’m so there. (My husband is going to think I’m nuts though.)

Ya’ll, I better start knitting like this woman, pronto.

Anyway, I rushed home today so I could get a picture of the monkey socks in natural light for you all to check out:

‘Cause all the prior photos I took of these (in crappy lighting at night) just didn’t do them justice at all. I’m actually hoping that I might be able to finish these tonight. I’m getting faster and faster with the lace-pattern repeats, so I think it’s entirely possible. Besides, I have lots of goodies on the DV-R to watch while I knit!

It’s not that I want to get them done because I’m tired of them — quite the contrary actually. I really like the Monkey pattern. I think it’s the first sock pattern that I’ve knit that I would be entirely willing to do a second time over (and I just may do that, because this pair is a gift and I’d like a pair for myself). I just really want to get these out in the mail to the person they’re being made for a.s.a.p.

… and ya know, I have piles of sock yarn that I’m dying to knit up!

I’m really not a big fan of Valentine’s Day. I don’t mean to be a stick in the mud, or a traitor to the female gender… but I’m just not a fan of ooey-gooey romantic, mushy stuff. It all makes me kind of uncomfortable and squicked-out.

Therefore, I told my husband yesterday to not do anything special for Valentine’s Day. He and I agreed not to exchange anything. But of course, when I came home from work today, we both had cards for each other and he got me a box of chocolates that we’re sharing (he likes the milk chocolate, I like the dark — it works perfectly).

We’re both terrible with this. I hope this isn’t setting the precedent for our Valentine’s Days to come — agreeing not to get/do anything but then getting/doing things anyway. Silliness.

Anyway.

I also got a package with Loopy-kisses from The Loopy Ewe today! Here’s a picture of the fibery goodness in this order:

The top skein is Paca Peds from The Alpaca Yarn Company and the name of the colorway is “Singin’ the Blues”. I’ve been eagerly waiting for this yarn to come in stock at TLE. It’s for another pair of socks for my grandmother. She likes wearing her hand-knitted socks to bed because her feet get so cold. So I thought alpaca, warm as it is, would be perfect for the next pair of socks I make for her. She’s also a blue-jeans sort of lady, so that’s why I picked this particular colorway. I can’t wait to cast this on. I’m going to have to find the perfect pattern for it. (Suggestions?)

The second skein is Spritely Goods Sylph in “Sage”. I picked this color for myself. Purples and greens are pretty different for what I typically pick for myself (normally I gravitate toward blues and pinks). The way the muted colors mix together really appealed to me and I thought they would make a lovely pair of socks for springtime.

My visit with my parents over the weekend was so nice. I really didn’t want them to leave. I’m fairly certain they weren’t keen on leaving either, as they’ll be returning to single-digit temperatures and lake effect snow. We didn’t do much sight-seeing or anything while they were here, as they’ve both seen most of the sights the last few visits. My mom and I spent a lot of time chatting and knitting, and I played a lot of Wii-bowling with my dad.

I took my parents up to my LYS on Friday so that my mom could pick out some yarn. I think she got an idea of why I love going there so much. My poor dad was probably bored stiff, but then again, my mom has dragged him to so many fabric and quilting stores over the years he’s probably not phased by it. (I’ve seen him help her pick out some excellent, unexpected color-combinations for quilts before actually.)

Anyway.

My mom picked out some Brown Sheep Wildfoote sock yarn and some Wool in the Woods Cherub to try out for her first socks. I managed to not walk out with any yarn myself (this time… *ahem*), though a few things were calling my name and I may have to return for them later in the week…

When we got home, I helped my mom get started knitting up the Heather Strips and Stripes pattern by Chris Carroll, using the Cherub yarn. I cast on the same pattern using some Chewy Spaghetti yarn from my stash, but abandoned it fairly fast. I’ll probably frog it and start over later, I just have too many other socks (and other projects) on the needles right now.

Mom did a great job with her sock knitting. As expected, she didn’t need much help. I did get to teach her a few things though. For instance, she’d never done an SSK so I showed her how. By the time they left this morning, I believe she was almost done doing the gusset decreases on the first sock. I’m anxious to see how her socks turn out (and if she finds herself suffering from second-sock syndrome). I told her I demand she e-mail photos as soon as she finishes it!

I finished the simple ruffled/ribbed scarf I was knitting out of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande. It turned out a bit shorter than what I’d prefer. I think about a skein and a half would have done better. But it’s so soft and pretty that I’m sure I’ll wear it anyway. I knit a bit on it in the waiting room at my doctor’s office on Friday and then finished it on Saturday. (Yay for another item to add to my 2008 FO list!)

After the scarf was done, I wound up working on my Monkey socks. Once again, I’m doing these two at a time on two circular needles a’la Antje Gillingham’s method. It’s going SO well! I’m really starting to think I may never knit another single sock again. (Well, unless it’s an especially complex pattern.) This time I managed to not screw up the heel turn, and I’m going merrily along doing my gusset decreases. I’m hoping I can finish these by the end of the week and send them to their intended recipient over the weekend.

And speaking of Antje Gillingham! She’s going to be giving a workshop at my LYS on the 23rd and I’m lucky enough to be attending. I’m so excited! I believe the class is either full, or darn close to it. I’m going to be there helping out and absorbing all the information I possibly can. The workshop is the day before my 26th birthday, so it’s kind of like a birthday present for me — spending the whole day at a knitting workshop!

I never thought I’d finish these socks. WHEW. I nearly ran out of yarn too.

The pattern is one of my favorite stand-by’s: the 8 Stitches Per Inch sock from Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd. I knit them two at a time on two circular needles using the book Knitting Circles Around Socks by Antje Gillingham. I am so glad I knit them that way too — I don’t think I would have ever finished the second sock otherwise.

My husband is sick in bed (poor guy) so I haven’t gotten to show them to him yet. Hopefully he’ll like them. And hopefully they fit… if not, I may cry! Hehe.

Now I’m on to casting on my next project. Here’s the yarn:

It’s hopefully going to be a pair of Monkeys. Believe it or not, I’ve not knit a pair of Monkeys before. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they turn out with this yarn. (It’s also my first time knitting with Wollmeise sock yarn!)

In other news… I had waaaaay too much fun today. I went up to my LYS to sit ‘n knit for the better part of the afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve gotten a chance to go up there and hang out on a Saturday and I’m hoping I can make it up there a lot more often now. It was such a good time. I’ve really not ever met such a fun group of women before.

I picked up a few goodies today while I was at the shop too: I got another hank of Schaefer Anne because I’m loving working with it. It looks and feels so nice. I also got a hank of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande. I’ve been looking at that yarn for quite some time (it’s amazingly soft) and today I finally decided to grab some of it for my stash. I also got some beads to start working on a lacey scarf out of my Schaefer Susan that’s been living in my stash for quite a while.

My project queue is getting really long these days…